College Project

To communicate around WHEALBI project and show the importance of genetic resources for the future of agriculture, 5 European agriculture colleges and universities, coming from 5 different countries (Italy, France, UK, Germany and Hungary) will be involved in the dissemination of the project.

These colleges and universities will be asked to conduct small trials to work and investigate, on a pedagogical way, the genetic diversity. They will be all together in contact to discuss and analyse the observations they will make around the diversity of the same varieties cultivated in different locations and environments.

Researchers from the project will participate, coordinate and teach in the project

Start of the college project: September 2016

Up to now, the colleges that have confirmed their participation to the project are:

Vetagro sup (Clermont-Ferrand, France) – The college project has been tested from March to June 2016 with Vetagro sup in France and students got really involved in the project. For French speakers, click here for more news !

For the scholar year 2016-17, the schedule of the college project and courses is the following one:

January 2016-March 2016: Final selection of the 5 colleges. Discussion with professors on the schedules and program. Request availability of space for trials: max 50m² (20 to 30 plots of 0.5m² + easy walking paths)September-November 2016 (according to usual sawing date): Introduction of the project to the students (half day intervention from a WHEALBI consortium member) + easy manual sawing of the trials + labelling (preparation of the field to be done before)Winter 2016: quick check of the trials by the studentsApril 2017: Intervention of a WHEALBI consortium member: Total : 2 days.
1 day course + trial visit + first recordings + discussionCourses: Goal of the project – Wheat and barley genetic resources – Wheat and barley breeding
– Practical experimental design, what for?
– Install application on smartphones and upload the trial settings
– Recordings on the field – technics
– How to interact with other colleges : the dropbox and the shared forum + twitter and facebook account that can be reached by each studentFrom April 2017 to end of courses: Twice a week: recordings on the application (personal work – can start to exchange with other colleges; ask questions on the forum, take pictures for disease identification to ask other colleges, etc)Beginning of June 2017 (according to college exams) or September 2017: small statistical and genetical analysis + interaction with other colleges – videoconference

What we offer to the participating university or college:

Free courses and follow-up of the project – free intervention of scientists involved in the project with very high level
Seeds and labelling
Applications (dropbox, field book…)
Online Documentation
Communication at the European level of the involvement of the university on a European Research Project – lot of different channels targeted

What we request from the participating university or college:

A small “field” (max 50m²) for wheat and barley genetic diversity trials
Selection of a motivated classroom, open-minded with ideally a correct level of English (at least understanding). Max: 25 students
Time for integration on the yearly planning of the courses. Integration of different disciplines.

If interested to follow-up the project, please contact us at : contact (at) whealbi.eu

This project has received funding from the European Union's Seventh Framework Programme for research, technological development and demonstration under grant agreement n°FP7-613556